Case Number 04557

Vendetta

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All Rise...

According to Judge David Johnson, you'll be praying for the sweet release of viewing Dennis Franz's fat ass if you subject yourself to this Troma flick.

The Charge

"A child killed…a wife seeking revenge…a sex-crazed killer
seeking them both!" (What?! The killer is seeking both the
wife and the deceased child? That doesn't make any sense!)

Opening Statement

George Saunders, writer of such classics as Cobra-Marine and
Bloodsport IV and star of Visions of Passion, Stolen Sex
Tapes, Erotic Boundaries, Intimate Deception, Real Couples:
Sex in Dangerous Places, and Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the
C.I.A., made this crappy movie too.

Facts of the Case

Much like its befuddling tagline, Vendetta is a confusing organism. It
confuses the viewer as to why the movie was ever looked at by a person in
authority who then said: "Yes! Let us release this movie to the public and
put our names on it!" Of course, this is Troma, and they're willing to put
their names on anything.

First things first: this movie is horrible, but horrible in the way where it
is a joy to mock. The acting is amateurish, there are some hilarious filming
gaffes, the writing is grade-school-recess quality, and the overall look and
feel is two notches above home movies.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's look at what writer/director
George Saunders has contributed to the legacy of human existence.

Jack Mason (Saunders) and his wife Jennifer (Monica Baber, a kind of
bizzarro Shannon Tweed) suffered through an awful tragedy when their daughter
was raped and killed one year ago. The trauma drove the two apart, and they are
now drifting as unhinged, emotionally detached cops.

Jack is the most unstable of the two, as he is constantly flashing back to
happier times with his family (including an odd sequence where the three of them
are having a picnic, and he suddenly starts making out with his wife in front of
their daughter). He also tends to break into spontaneous fits of weeping and
piss-poor emoting.

To drown the sorrow, he's taken up banging a fellow police officer who has a
taste for the bondage and ambiguous moral choices. But when a series of
mutilation-murders hit the streets, Jack is teamed up with his estranged wife to
track down the killer.

Unfortunately for the investigation, Jack is the worst cop ever. He is prone
to violence, tends to storm into volatile situations without backup (or much of
a plan for that matter), has zero observation skills, lets his ravenous sexual
appetite cloud his better judgment, drives a really slow car, never fully
searches a crime scene, wags his loaded gun around with no consideration for his
or others' safety, berates and attacks his fellow officers, refuses to take time
off despite his wild emotional ups and downs, can't shoot straight, exchanges
confidential information pertaining to ongoing criminal investigations in
exchange for sexual intercourse, willfully places his partner—a husband
and father-to-be—in harm's way, slips in and out of hallucinations, and
keeps a pet pigeon.

Beyond that, he's definitely the right man for the job.

As more and more bodies show up (all men, all missing their, err,
protuberances), Jack gets himself deeper and deeper into the mystery of the
killer's identity. In fact, it may be someone he knows, or is even sleeping
with. Of course, that narrows the list of possible down to the entire female
cast.

The Evidence

There are a lot of great crappy-movie moments in here for you and your
friends to enjoy. Some of my favorites include:

• Jack's partner learning his wife is pregnant, he asks her if
it's a boy or girl, and the actress, taken aback by the question, inhales,
smiles awkwardly and nods.

• In a low-speed chase, Jack is being pursued by a rogue cop in a
police cruiser. The cruiser runs headlong into a stack of tires, then
explodes?!

• There are many shots where speaking characters are obscured by
plants and candles and people's backs.

• The pale, pudgy body of George Saunders and his desire to
flaunt it in lame sex scenes and outbursts of emotion.

• The aforementioned outbursts of emotion.

• Very, very obvious squibs.

• Gunshots that sound an awful like cap rounds.

So you get the picture? Vendetta is precisely what you are expecting
to get-low-budget, wannabe cop story, with lots of cheap nudity, overuse of the
F-word, and special effects amateurs having too much fun with Karo syrup.

A typical low-grade presentation all around. The fullscreen video is of poor
stock and the colors are uneven scene-to-scene, except of course when he have to
endure Saunders's tubby white butt. A stereo mix really bring out the POP
in the gunshots (i.e. it's shallow and tinny). Your basic Troma bonus materials
accompany the disc—trailers and book spots. Yawn.

Closing Statement

Troma's packaging hails Vendetta as "the most disturbing cop
movie ever!" I don't know who uttered those words, but he was probably
watching back-to-back episodes of Cop Rock! instead of this chum.

The Verdict

Jack Mason is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, to be
served inside an abandoned refrigerator.